jjohnson3803

Very nice!

SLVs are my preferred EP, but I've never tried a TV.  I wear usually wear glasses while observing and the ER of the SLVs is quite good.   Plus they don't have undercuts and the eyecups are twist up if either matter to you.

I've been considering adding a 20mm SLV to my 10, 6, and 4mm.  I have a couple of cheaper Paradigms / BSTs - 25mm and 15mm - that I'd probably sell.

Tough decision.  I'd lean toward my 72ED - built like a tank, sliding dewshield so it collapses to about 12 inches long for easy travel, sharp optics.  But my ST102 has aperture and my ST80 with an upgraded 2-speed focuser is possibly my best all-around scope - size, weight, aperture, and inexpensive to replace.

If I were *really* pressed for space / weight, I'd keep my 50/250 converted RACI finder.

It would be an easy choice amongst my binos.

I've lusted after 80EDs and 90-ishEDs, but I think they might be a bit on the heavy side for my current needs.  I had a 102ED and it was a bit too much.

SW 90mm Mak

AT102ED

Orion ST120

And a couple of Sears / Tasco(?) 60mm refractors when I was about 12.  Sort of wish I had kept one of those for nostalgic reasons.

Quick look around Sco with my 80mm this morning:

M4 as usual was not discernable - too low in the LP filth.  No surprise as it's difficult with my ST102.

But another globular in Sco, M80, was easy to see.  Relatively small and best with averted vision.

Rho Oph - striking three star triangular asterism. All three are doubles / multiples if I read SkySafari correctly.  Have to revisit that one.

Omega 1 & 2 Sco - nice pair.

I really need to try to do some more sketching, although I'm severely artistically impaired.    Open clusters and doubles / multiples are my favorite targets in my home LP.

I've only done a few sketches of doubles and wide fields, but I just use a soft black pencil on white paper.  The sketch can be scanned and reversed to show white on black and then reprinted if I want.

Enjoy!

1 hour ago, Moonlit Night said:

I don’t think there’s canals like we have in the UK

No, not from what I've seen on TV of UK canals.  Canals here tend to be quite wide, deep, dirty, and busy with enormous commercial barge traffic.

I noticed an "extra" orange star in the bowl of the Little Dipper a year or so ago.  It was probably around 2nd magnitude, didn't appear to move over a period of several minutes, and then slowly faded. 

I couldn't find anything listed as being there at that time on the Heavens Above site, but I'm told that military sats are often not listed.

Skies cleared sometime during the night, so I had a short session with my 72ED viewing the moon this morning.  Quite a wavy image, but I was able to observe three new to me craters between Archimedes and Timocharis:  Bancroft, Feuillee, and Beer.  Dare I say I have discovered Beer on the moon?  

I also noticed a rather faint, but quite striking star NW of the lunar terminator.  SkySafari shows was 42 Librae. 

Observed several old favorites as well, but the moon was moving behind the trees and dawn was coming on quickly, so I called it a night.

I don't think Bortle meant his scale to be the end-all-be-all, but rather a relative scale for quick approximations.  IIRC, he wrote that himself on Cloudy Nights or somewhere.  Or more simply, 8 is substantially worse than 4, etc.

More objectively, there's MPAS, SQM, and probably other alphabet soup to use.

Neighbors had more outdoor lights than usual blazing last night, so I went out between astro and nautical twilight this morning.  Decided to compare my binos.  I'm trying to decide if I want to order a pair of 8x56s.  Popped around Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila for a bit.

Navy surplus 7x50s.  Lenses probably aren't in the greatest shape given that they're 80 years old, but I do think these have the nicest view and feel to them.  Mag is maybe a little low and they're what I'd consider medium weight.  Relatively easy to handhold.

Aculon 10x50s.  Meh.  These just don't excite me.  Lightweight, but a bit more difficult to hold steady at 10X.  I might donate these - I'm not sure it's worth the hassle to sell them.

Giant View IF 15x70s.  Starfields and random clusters are gorgeous in these, but they're too heavy to handhold for long.  Since I've decided to forego binos on tripods, etc., I'll give these a try with a mini tripod on my chest as written in the bino forum, but they might have to go as well.

Finished up with my AT50 RACI at 17X on my new AZ Pronto - Deneb, region around Sadr, and then down the swan's spine a bit.

Not much identified in the way of targets, but I think it was time well spent comparing binos.

17 minutes ago, Steve Ward said:

That'd be an "Americanism" pure and simple , I'm sure they mispronounce our language just for the hell of it ... 😄

Heck yes.  Now go take your VITE-ah-mins.  😉

I've wondered if it might be good for variable star observing.  Snap a pic, move on, repeat a few nights later, and compare.

   Off topic, but narrowboat living has always fascinated me.  There are liveaboards in the US, but I don't think there's anything like narrowboats here.

3 hours ago, josefk said:

This was a tip for Auto League observing notes where sky quality is a "required" metric. The sky quality you log is the first numeral.

It doesn't add anything you don't know on the night instinctively but adds another "data point" into your log...

This I like.  My home is almost always a 3, very rarely a 4.

If people dislike Bortle, there's a at least one LP map with color coded MPAS values.  (I'm in a grey zone on that, unfortunately.)

I did buy one.  I'm not 100% convinced it's better than my Manfrotto 475B, but it's certainly easier to transport / use for grab-n-go.  

On 18/02/2024 at 10:53, PatientObserver said:

I started experimenting with binoculars with the Nikon AE line. The first model I purchased was the 7x50. I later aquired the 10x50 and the 8x40.

What's your opinion of the 8x40s?  I'm thinking about getting a pair of 8xSomethings soon.

Photo tripod bags.  For hardshell, I use plastic tool boxes (Stanley) and Apache cases.  

Yeah.  I was just thinking that I have enough reasonable quality scopes, mounts, and tripods.  So now I'm looking at binos, monoculars, and wondering if maybe a 60mm finder for superquick grab-n-go would be a nice improvement over my 50mm.  I mean there's a whole group.io forum for 60mm observing.

And since I have 15mm and 25mm EPs, I should get a 20mm to fill the gap, right?  ☺️

SkyWatcher AZ5 would probably work well.  I think mine weighs about 2.2kg if that factors into your GnG considerations.  Slo-mo is decent on it.

I just noticed the first used See* for sale listing in the CN classifieds.  

2 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

I can't work out how to lin k to specific sections but, wind back to a few minutes ago- 2024-02-23 04:57:00 and watch a little way above the silver dome second in from the right- what would have been a screamer with no moon.

Nice!

6 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

The image is very bright at the moment due to the moon (I think the live camera points roughly east so, the domes are probably reflecting a lot of moonlight) but, I have still caught a couple of sporadics in the last 10 minutes or so.

I'll have to get on the site.

Looking at which constellations are visible and the time stamps and also where the sun comes up, I agree the cam is pointing roughly east.  My favorite screen cap so far: